DEAD HOPE
by Adeosun Olamide
Summary: When Hope Dies. An African Writes.


I was born. In a community, in a society where everything and everyone is stratified I was born. Like all I didn't stand the chance of making a choice, of selecting where I would be born, where I would grow, who I will live with. I grew up to know that I can't be what I want to be, that the best I can be is to be as my parent, as my brothers, as an outcast. As a kid I knew I can't marry the one whom I love, I can't have the house that I seek, I can't play the sport I knew nor chant the song I love and knew just like every other child.

My parent were Anglicans, we attended the Anglican Church not very far from the stream and our path to the cathedral is different from them others, The cathedral was so big and there were restrictions to where we can sit and step and even we are not allowed to pay tithe or give offerings or participate at all in church activities. It has not always been this way, when the priest was a white man, he preached love and desired to paint us equal before them as we are before God, He did not fail only until after his death.

Though everything was beautiful from a non victim's eye, from the stream to the hills, to the trees, to the breeze, to the birds, to the blue skies, gloomy moon, and early sun rise and to the people, we had the same skin but different blood and heart. I had stopped seeing the beauty the day I became acquainted with life, the day I knew who I was, the day I started remembering events, the days I had to go far miles to get water and the stream was close. Until then I never knew why they won't let us play together or even touch each other, I never knew why they won't help us and why they won't let us help them, till tomorrow nothing would change their belief they say. As a kid I became familiar with the word untouchables, I became habituated to the wicked world we live in, in a world where a group of people determine our life , determines if we live or die, we are also Africans, also Igbo's like they are, we also have head, hands, eyes and we both have the same physical features, we were told we were born to be sacrificed to the gods, we are owned by their deities and we can't eat, sleep, touch or have any physical contact with them. I never knew I would be so close to being the change, I never knew I had a future and my name would come to cause pain in some vines. It angered me any time the black priest preaches equality before God and yet he won't let us participate in church activities, that was the only church that I knew and the church never opposed human sacrifice openly, the church would say they respect traditions and cultures and they cannot afford a conflict with the natives so even the organizers of the sacrifice were workers in the church. In the light of hope I grew in gloomy darkness, I grew in thought that one day we would realize what is right and in hours what we realize would come into reality, never did I be of the opinion that I am on the periphery of destroying any possibility of transfiguration.

Didn't select my parent, never selected where I would be born, I m just a victim, choices were made without my idiosyncratic deliberation, Selfish choices, I m sure I would never have wished to be born here as an Osu, an outcast, but I was born here, into a lovely family in a spiteful society, where we see children gather together, playing, holding hands in the village square, listening to stories from men and women of olds yet the best I could do is to watch which is considered an offence one whose punishment is banishment. I'm not allowed to talk, to speak to their children, we are considered the abominable. Our fate they say came through inheritance and no matter how hard I studied, how gifted I'm, how artistic, no matter how much I could sing, it means nothing as I am already ascribed and marked to a limit. Just birth certificate determines my future. I am taught to belief that I can only see them I can't marry them, I can only smell the aroma of their food I can't taste or eat it, I can only see their radiant skin, I can't feel it as it is fixed for life little did I know I would come and break new grounds, grounds that put my all of us in tears. My mother said it started when angry gods I mean their gods started demanding human beings for sacrifice in place of the usual animals used for the atonement of evil they committed, then we became the sacrifice. I used to ask her why this belief has not ended even with the help of recent scientific inventions, civilization and globalization but she would reply we are not part of their world.

We were humiliated, isolated and our rights were infringed upon all in the name of the obnoxious, outrageous, and devastating traditions, though I already chose my path but my path won't let the obnoxious practice go away, Christianity, modern education, civilization, human right and culture have done theirs yet the practice remains. I am the slave, the stranger, the outcast, the untouchable, and so I behaved like one, till now as I sit waiting to be killed, expecting death, I still never know if it was a muse from God or the devil but I knew it almost worked. At seventeen I broke the grounds, I raped seven of their daughters, we were inferior and they were superior, I thought the way of an inferior, I knew the consequences of my action yet what I would gain made it worth it, my contact with the Nwandiala immediately converted them to Osu, seven of their daughter became inferior at my contact but would I ever go unpunished, would my conscience ever stop to hurt me? All the happiness I felt while doing it became a pain in and to my heart, I couldn't bear it as the girls were banished forever, the thought that they didn't offend me filled me yet I consoled myself with the fact that we were all suffering different course we know not about.

My ordeal started when the daughter of the oracle priest met me, she allured me into her will, I couldn't reject or refuse her exquisite smile, and she was bewitching as her father was. Though she knew I was an Osu she talked to me, she broke all laws when she touched my hands I didn't and couldn't belief when she told me she followed me as I unmasked myself the day I raped the seven girls, I was petrified and the thought of killing her did cross my mind but for the intimacy I already began to share, she approaching me earlier already gave me a cold sweat, but I didn't belief she wanted to be my friend after my evil deeds and soon did our friendship grew into love. An Idolization no one must be aware of, one intimacy would soon expose, it outspread between my clan and it became a rumor within her clan, I an OSU she a Nwandiala the daughter of the oracle priest in a bond never to be separated by anyone, not even by ourselves. The words on the street like fire in a dry forest soon got to her father, and her last discussion with me was about her father browbeat, she was scared that day but in my little words I whisper into her ears 'All will be fine' She told me she wanted to go away , to run away, far off from this world of her father, yet I told her 'All will be well' that was the best I could say, that was the last time I would see her, that was the last time I would talk because the rest would be screams. Her father wouldn't bear the world saying his grandchildren are Osu, He got swallowed by pride, his self-esteem won't let him see his daughter happiness but rather he took pride in humiliating his daughter, he demeaned my heart by chastening her, he let dignity make him do the undignified, he let the prince sleep with her without her consent, the prince defiled love, he polluted our heart and killed her, She died I wouldn't say but she died, she died because of her father's wickedness, because of the prince vileness, because of the Nwandiala people , because of the Igbo's refusal to end this obnoxious act, she was killed by all of them, all of you, who heard of this practice and yet you did nothing, They wouldn't even let me honor her , they even won't let me see her, and in there pretense they attempted to make me feel guilty which they succeeded at, I knew I had fallen and I knew they must fall , All of them who had a pact to her death.

Let the gods fault me.

Let them not have mercy upon me.

No they would, that is why they are gods and I am man, As an abandoned child, a forsaken one, deserted by the world I have survived until now, I can't keep my head above water, I refuse to be abased but rather to follow my mind, my mind keeps me wondering I raped seven of their girls and that is just because mine was humiliated I decided to want to take the wrong path, to make and keep the equation unbalanced. I took to sword; I sent them to hell, the wicked demon that bore my heart and the prince all to face eternal damnation.

Here I am with my vision for a casteless society fallen. Tomorrow I would be executed; tomorrow I would meet my heart as I am already convicted, convicted for a violation needed.

Hello. Thanks for reading.

Hope you got the message?

For which reason should we keep quite not correcting ourselves?

We must share our suffering and be distinguished from the world. Yes you are unique, yes you are exceptional, and even you are matchless but respect the fellows. We all are the same, even the man born in the street, in the forest got bloods in veins, got feelings and he would die just as you would die. It is not over, there is still a division, they still disregard us but we are one, we have to be one.

But I am sorry we are not one, it is going to take more than just reading this to while off time, and it requires your strength, your time, your money. You would help right, you would help friend, you would tell them in the village to treat them equally, you would show love to them, you would be their brother. You know what you would do but do not ignore this thinking it has washed away without you touching, washing and stirring it.


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